Magic is Programming

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"So, we not only attacked you for something you are not doing, but we also completely missed someone else who actually was doing the exact thing we attacked you for? Souls, what a mess." Haftel grimaced, and sighed. "We knew of the young lady who confronted you, but we had no idea she was a high noble. She must have been holding back to conceal herself, but we were still lax."

Sconter broke his habitual silence. "Her armor and twin swords that she bore in that confrontation were extremely high quality." He glanced at Lorvan's polished plate armor. "Perhaps not up to the standards of the Royal Guard's elite officers, but nonetheless very expensive. She never showed those inside the city. I should have followed her into the Wilds."

Carlos shook his head. "Why, because she had strong escorts? How many others come to Dramos showing the same signs of nobility in hiding that she did? How many do you believe are actually nobles? Would you have the time to investigate all of them to that extent? Even if you had followed her before, would you have actually discovered her ruse? What if she only brought out her best gear from storage to confront another noble, and used more innocuous equipment on every other expedition?"

Haftel nodded grimly. "Point taken. Though from the sound of that 'rotation agreement' she mentioned, more of them may be nobles than we ever suspected."

"There is no need to concern yourselves with that." Lorvan maintained his statue-like guard position even as he spoke. "Until two days ago this area was Crown lands, and a noble taking resources from Crown lands without permission is theft from the Crown. The Crown will handle investigating and punishing it accordingly. Their restraint in taking little enough to not be noticed may earn some leniency, but the Crown will not allow such brazen defiance to go unpunished."

Carlos raised his right hand, waving briefly for silence. "I believe that topic has been discussed enough. Now, moving forward: While I understand your reasons, and I do personally forgive you for it, you must still make amends for the pain you caused and the soul development you have cost me."

Haftel exchanged glances with each of his party members, then nodded to Carlos. "Fair. What do you have in mind, my lord? We... could pay a considerable fine."

"Money? I already control the city treasury. A fine would be more punishment for you than amends for me." Carlos shook his head and waved dismissively. "No, it should something that will meaningfully benefit me, and I have thought of only two things you could give that might do that: your personal unique knowledge and expertise, or your service. You could teach me something useful that no one else can, or you could owe me a favor to do a task for me. Or, if you prefer, you could join our staff. House Carlos is rather short on notable employees at the moment, as you might have noticed."

Haftel stared, and slowly blinked, then laughed and slapped his knee, still kneeling. "Haha! I like your style, kid- er, my lord. My apology for the slip of the tongue. May we have a day to consider and discuss it?"

"You may have a week, if you want. We have no urgent need for this." Carlos smiled, and Amber nodded in agreement. "You may go, but do not spread news of us."

Haftel stood and bowed deeply from the waist. Esmorana, Noralt, and Sconter all bowed with him, and the four of them walked out with quiet dignity.

Carlos and Amber sat in silence for a minute, until Carlos's stomach growled. They both broke out chuckling, and Carlos stood up with a slight groan and stretched. "Is it weird that, right now, I almost care more about missing dinner than being killed today?"

Mayor Stelras smiled at him. "Hunger in the present moment has a way of grabbing your attention that any past misfortune almost never does, no matter how severe. Go and eat. Our business here is done for today."

After a very filling late meal and a good night's sleep, Carlos woke up the next morning ready to advance his soul development back to the third compression again in the safety of his and Amber's rented suite in the Adventurer's Haven. After the first hour or so of sitting quiet and still, steadily absorbing ambient mana, he found himself bored. It was rather tedious and repetitive work, really. He wanted to be learning, experimenting, and creatively solving interesting problems, not doing the same mind numbing drudgery hour after hour.

Why hadn't he felt this way about it the first time he'd done this? That question took Carlos some pondering to puzzle his way through to an answer. Eventually, he realized that originally he had been so caught up in excitement over gaining magical power and the newness of the experience that he just hadn't cared about the tedium. But now... Now, his excitement had been interrupted and brought crashing down into the reality of having enemies who would not just leave him alone, and the process of advancing this way wasn't new anymore. In fact, he wasn't even advancing to a new level of power this time, but merely regaining what he had already achieved before.

...That process also had stopped at some point while he had been thinking about all of that. Damn. He resumed absorbing mana again. It was really easy, but not so easy that he didn't have to pay attention. ...And reflecting on that threatened to destabilize the process again. He paused, remembering times he had felt similar boredom in his programming career, and one of his favorite principles for such work: if it's simple, repetitive, tedious, and needs to be done repeatedly, then automate it. Creating the automation will be more interesting work, and in the long run will actually save time and effort.

Sadly, when he tried to make his debugger change itself to handle ambient mana absorption automatically, his introspector reported that it wasn't developed enough to do that yet. Not without sacrificing some of its other features and reducing its versatility, at least.

Carlos sighed. This was going to be a long day of frustration and annoyance, on top of boredom, he was sure.

The day after that, Carlos was back to thrice-compressed mana density, and it was time to venture into the Wilds again. This time they were going to investigate the nearest dungeon, because Carlos refused to spend another entire day doing nothing but absorbing mana. As they entered the forest and passed definitively out of sight from Dramos, Lorvan stopped and turned to face Carlos. "Please wait a moment, my lord. I must ensure your safety." He raised his gauntleted right hand and pressed his palm lightly on Carlos's chest. A large transparent bubble appeared, enveloping Carlos.

Carlos raised an eyebrow as he looked around at the slightly iridescent surface surrounding him. It looked almost like the film of a giant vertically elongated soap bubble, though it didn't obscure anything from his sight and it was perfectly steady and still. He reached out to touch it, and found that it blocked his hand. Pressing his hand against it felt strange. It felt solid, and perfectly smooth, but had no temperature. It was like a barrier of solidified air. Experimentally, he took a step forward, and the barrier moved with him, staying centered on his chest. A few branches of a nearby shrub were pushed back by the movement.

He looked around and spotted Lorvan returning to the lead from placing another mobile force barrier around Amber. "Is this really necessary, Lorvan?"

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"Your death two days ago demonstrated that it very well may be, my lord." Lorvan walked as he spoke.

Carlos frowned as he belatedly jogged for a moment to catch up. "It seems excessive. And I need to learn at some point to defend myself without you."

"If you insist and directly order me to, I will take it down. But unless you have many more spells than I know about, you do not yet even have the tools to practice your defense with. Just as learning to wield a sword requires having a sword, learning to fight with spells requires having suitable spells. And even if you do have those spells, fighting against foes who will genuinely seek your death should come after practice and much sparring, not as your first beginning experience." Lorvan kept his head constantly swiveling, on the lookout for any approaching threats.

Carlos had no retort for that, and held his tongue as he continued following Lorvan. His force bubble brushed up against a tree as he walked, and he noticed that the tree resisted being pushed, forcing him to take a small step to the side to go around it instead. After another half hour, they entered a region of denser mana and he started trying to absorb it while he walked. He was disappointed and annoyed to find that, while absorbing mana did take less focused attention now, it still took enough that he couldn't watch where he was going well enough. After several stumbles, interrupting his concentration each time, he gave up for now.

Several more minutes of walking later, Carlos was increasingly bored. He'd never been much of a nature person, and the force bubble protecting him on top of the guards removed any sense of danger, so it was just walking and getting a little winded and sore. He was tempted to try starting a game of "I spy" just for something to pass the time, until he remembered something actually important he could do. [Hey, Purple? Ready to talk about what soul structures you might want?]

[Hmm?] An impression of distracted idleness from Purple quickly changed into focused and alert attention. [Oh! Yes.]

[Great. First, is your introspector done, and can you tell if the arrangement and constraints in your soul are the same as for mine and Amber's?]

[It is, and they are. Eight sections of a circle, with a top and bottom. Separate structures repel each other, but synergy links can counteract the repulsion.]

[Huh. I wonder if that's inherent to sapient souls in general for some reason.] Carlos shook his head. [But that's irrelevant for this. So, second main question: What do you want? Not for soul structures specifically, but in general? You came with me originally to escape being forced to spend everything on wishes all the time, I know that much already. Anything else?]

Purple paused to consider, but Carlos got the sense that he was considering only how to express his answer, not the answer itself. [...I want to be well protected. I want to feel safe. Free to relax, with no dangers. I have felt that the last few days in this warded vault, and it is good. But it is also limiting. My domain is severely constrained, and I can't hold much mana. I still feel tired. I want to feel comfortable, in both my size and my reserves of mana. And... I want to be active. Doing the same thing for a long time does not bother me, but doing nothing feels unsettling and wrong.]

[Hmm. You're ok with your protection being dependent on others, and on things provided to you? You don't want to protect yourself with powerful traps and monsters?]

Purple mentally shrugged at him. [Protecting myself is good. Others protecting me is good. Both is safer, and safer is better.]

Carlos's contemplations about Purple were briefly interrupted by a pair of trees right in front of him, inconveniently barely too close together for his force bubble to pass between them. He took a few steps to go around, and turned his main focus back to Purple. [Ok. And, you want to be doing something, but you don't really care what it is? No particular desire to make better traps, or anything?]

Another shrug came over the mental link. [Correct. If I have a passion for anything in particular, I have not yet discovered it.]

[Ok. So, we need to find a bigger area for you to claim, we need to plan and create protections for that area and especially your core, and we need to come up with something for you to do.] Carlos hesitated. [You, uh, you realize that if you leave the choice of what you'll be doing entirely up to me, without expressing any preference, I'll naturally be inclined to pick something that benefits me?]

[Yes. As long as it helps make me safer, and doesn't cost too much mana, I'll be happy with it.]

Carlos chewed his lip absently, and almost walked into a tree. [Well, if you really don't mind... I imagine you could be a great "smart home" for us, and being the home of a high noble house would mean you'd have the whole house protecting you. Me, Amber, Trinlen, Stelras, the city guards, maybe those adventurers, and whoever else ends up working for us.] Carlos made sure to focus on the concept behind the two word "smart home" label, and not the individual words in it.

Purple laughed. Actually laughed, the sound of amused friendly chuckles echoing in Carlos's head. [Sure, why not? That will probably end up being the best protection I could get. Are you thinking of soul structures to make me a better smart home for you, then?]

[Possibly. I'll have to think about it more. I want to make your soul plan orichalcum rank if I can, and for that everything has to have synergy with your bonds somehow.]

[Ok. If you think of any more questions, ask anytime.] Purple's attention turned away, and Carlos pondered ideas and possible synergies as he walked, still surrounded by a bubble of force that pushed all the underbrush out of his way.

A couple uneventful hours later, Lorvan finally stopped, right outside a large hole in the side of a hill. Carlos wasn't sure whether the lack of any encounters with monsters was because this area just didn't have many, or if Lorvan and Ordens had scared them all off before any even got into sight range. Regardless, this hole was the first thing on this little hike that Carlos had felt any sense of threat from. The ambient mana had crossed another density compression threshold on their way here, and it was moving strangely near the hole.

That hole was deep, possibly even an entrance to some kind of cave, and with the mana around it feeling more organized than usual Carlos suspected it led to the dungeon they were seeking. Lorvan confirmed that a moment later. "This is the dungeon entrance. Even without the incident two days ago, I would insist on giving both of you force barriers before continuing any further. Inside, we will face swarms of monsters so numerous that even we could not possibly kill all of them before they reach you. Are you ready?"

Carlos looked at Amber, and she shrugged and nodded. He faced Lorvan again, considered how his legs and feet felt, and lowered himself to a seat on the ground. "Give me a few minutes to rest. Then I'll be ready."

A few minutes later, with the soreness and fatigue in his feet and legs much reduced, Carlos stood back up, did a few stretches, and finally nodded to Lorvan at the dungeon entrance. "Ok. Time to see what this dungeon is like."

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